A Different View
Cute Kerry boys will always take some beating
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
‘Kerry urges Nigeria to respect human rights as it pursues Islamist militants’ exclaimed the headline on the report by Associated Press – well, the Skibbereen Eagle keeping an eye on Moscow is one thing, but now the boys in the Kingdom look to have taken this responsibility as the global guard dog to a whole new level.
The Kerry in question of course was John, the US Secretary of State – although the yapping puppy that is Pat Spillane would undoubtedly have had a few words for the Nigerian half-back line if someone threw a few bob his way to say it.
And Kerry wasn’t the most bizarre name in this AP report, because the former Presidential candidate was directing his comments at Nigeria’s President – the wonderfully titled Goodluck Jonathan, who is indeed a person as opposed to a farewell greeting.
And in truth the Nigerian situation is nothing to make fun of, because they are responsible for gross violations of human rights over the last three years, including executions and kidnapping – particularly along their shared border with Sudan.
Still, it didn’t come as a complete shock that Kerry – the county – would have proffered some opinion on the state of the world, given that they do come across as a sort of superior race.
Maybe it’s the battle for supremacy with their near-neighbours across the county bounds in Cork, a tribe not renowned as a bouquet of shrinking violets in their own right – truly there is no place for the retiring types in the battle between the Kingdom and the Real Capital of Ireland.
But whatever the claims of the Rebel County, the cutest crowd of all are in Kerry – unless the Kerry you’re talking about is Kerry Katona, where you’d need a microscope to find signs of intelligent life – and they see it not so much as a subject for debate but as a birthright.
Perhaps it’s down to their footballing successes of the Seventies and Eighties, when they swept all before them and we loved them because they could beat Dublin. But there are times that it looks like Spillane, in particular, still thinks those days are ongoing.
The reality is that there’s a whole generation tuning into The Sunday Game who never saw him play, and they possibly think this is some forum for angry grey-haired men to spout on about the first thing that comes into their heads.
In fairness to Spillane, he comes across as just stark raving mad – not the sneering, nasty piece of work that Joe Brolly portrays, as he fillets some other poor soul before the eyes of the nation.
Pat, of course, is now the new Jobs Tsar for rural Ireland, which isn’t a bad move given that he can hold down any number of them himself, and all at the same time.
But, once Spillane starts spouting, what are the chances that foreign industrialists won’t quietly excuse themselves to go to the bathroom and make their escape from the tiny window over the cistern?
There must be a job spec for sports analysts somewhere in the bowels of RTÉ that insists they are at least semi-lunatics – what else could explain the continued presence of Spillane, Brolly, Hook and Dunphy on the small screen?
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
The only time in your life that you should ever utter the words: “Do you know who I am?” are if you’ve just had a bang on the head or you are unfortunately suffering from dementia.
Because, otherwise, the phrase ‘do you know who I am’ only serves to make things a whole lot worse.
Normally, the phrase is unleashed towards late night door staff on a wave of alcohol – and never once in the history of time has it produced the result the utterer had intended.
The doorman may well know who you are which is often the very reason you’re not getting into the place in the first instance – or if he doesn’t know who you are, he won’t be unduly influenced when he does, unless you’re a famous movie star or his long-lost cousin.
‘Do you know where I am?’ might often be closer to the phrase you’re looking for, because that would serve you well when you’re looking for a taxi.
‘Do you know who I am?’ is a threatening phrase that in truth wouldn’t frighten the cat. But if you’re anxious to dig the hole a few shovels deeper, you should follow up with ‘I’d like to speak to your manager.’
Managers can be elusive at the best of times, but they’re normally rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to the small hours of the morning – and even if they’re there, they are most likely watching proceedings on CCTV…just so they know who you are, in case you yourself can’t remember.
‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ suggests that you and he or she are from the one social sphere which is several strata north of the one occupied by door staff.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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A Different View with Dave O’Connell
As it turned out, we were much closer to a Eurovision win than we could ever have imagined – not Ireland, of course, because we’ve now mastered the art of just sending cannon fodder to be blown out in the semi-final.
No, this was just two of us – myself and our eldest – who were lucky enough to be at Anfield for the Reds’ recent win over Brentford, where positioned in the seat right in front of us were four happy lads from Finland.
One of them, we now know, was Käärijä, the singer of the catchiest song at Eurovision, Cha Cha Cha.
But just a week before 7,000 people sung his catchphrase at the Eurovision Arena, he and two his mates – accompanied by an older bloke who had to be either his dad or from the national broadcaster – sat anonymously in the same corner of the lower level of Anfield’s Main Stand.
He was utterly unknown to us as well of course, and the only thing that saw him stand out was his green nail varnish. Live and let live, of course, but it still ensures that you make an impression even if it looks like you were just very late for St Patrick’s Day.
Käärijä may well be Liverpool’s greatest Scandinavian fan, although the bar for that is set fairly high, given that they invade the city in greater numbers every two weeks than the Vikings did just once during the first millennium.
Equally, he may not be a football fan at all – although, as the rest of the week proved, he sure loves a crowd.
Positioned as we were in the corner of the Main Stand, the next section to us, around the corner in the Anfield Road Stand – currently adding a top layer – was occupied by the visiting Brentford supporters.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Contactless payments reached a record €17.9 billion in Ireland last year – up by 31 per cent on 2021, as people came out from under their Covid shell and appear to have left their cash behind them.
Figures from the Banking & Payments Federation found that – despite the cost-of-living increases – the Irish public made three million contactless payments a day, worth an average of €53 million in the final quarter of 2022.
Given that there are 3.8 million people in Ireland over the age of 18, that means that almost every single one of us tapped the card every day last year.
And again, on the presumption that there are a few who still prefer peeling a fifty off a wad of notes, the true figure may be even higher, as we eschew actual money every time we go into a restaurant, bar or shop.
Then comes the monthly morning of reckoning when you open your statement – electronic of course because, like paper money, banks don’t deal in paper statements anymore either – and your guilty secrets unfurl like a rap sheet before your very eyes.
Five taps of a Friday night in the local, followed by a five-ounce burger meal on the way home.
And just why did you need a family-pack of crisps when a small bag would have done? Was all that beer and wine really for a party, or a night in just for one?
Cash provided plenty of dark corners to ignore your profligacy, but there are no hiding places in the contactless world.
Worse still, until that morning of reckoning arrives, you’ve no clue how much you’ve spent, and handing over the card doesn’t hurt half as much as parting with hard cash.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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